1. A good conditioner:
You can use any good conditioner that your hair responds to. I use the nexus humectress conditioner. Vo5 and herbal essences hello hydration are also pretty good:
Nexxus humectress - Leaves my hair feeling very soft |
2. Lots of olive oil
Invest in a big bottle of extra virgin oil. I use the EVOO O-live oil.
Any evoo will work. This was on sale at my local grocery store |
3. Lots and lots of patience
Ok, so let's begin:
1. Co wash your hair:
Don't shampoo wash. Shampoo will strip your hair and aggravate the situation. Co wash your hair with your conditioner. Apply the conditioner generously to your hair, leave it in for about 5mins and then rinse it out.
2. Air dry:
Let your hair air dry. This may take a while especially around the matted areas because the hairs are tightly entwined making it more difficult for air to get to these areas and dry them. But obviously, if you wait long enough, they will eventually dry.
3. Oil/lubricate your hair:
Apply lots and lots of olive oil to your hair, especially the matted areas. This is to lubricate the strands, reduce friction and enable the strands slide over each other freely without snagging against each other.
3. Detangle:
Begin to detangle in small sections. If your hair is well conditioned, despite being matted and tangled it would be soft. First thing you want to do is loosen the ball of matted hair by using your thumb and fore finger to gently and repeatedly pull it apart.
Matted hair |
Take the section |
Gently pull apart |
Repeat until matting is loosened as much as possible |
Once it is loose, begin pulling strands of hair out of the ball of matted hair. Do this until all strands are out. This will require A LOT of patience. It could take hours or days depending on how matted and tangled the hair is so be prepared for this.
Take a teeny section |
Pull it out |
Take another section |
Pull it out |
Keep pulling sections out until you've pulled all the strands out of the matted area. Once this is done the entire section should be detangled.
Detangled section |
Repeat this until all matted/detangled areas are dematted/detangled. Again, you'll need a lot of patience and a positive attitude. Don't get frustrated, sad, annoyed, defeated. If you are tired, not in the mood to continue, tie a scarf or a turban or wear a wig and go out: Go to the mall, go see a movie, grab a kit kat, take a break, regroup, come back and keep going at it. Best of luck!
xoxo
Bey
Great post, but you are doing too much work. Also conditioners and water based products can make severely matted tangled hair worse. Its better just to use the Take Down Remover cream. It was designed to detangle, soften and easily comb out knotts and clumps of tangled matted hair or even dreadlocks. It saves time from all this mixing of products that don't work on every type of hair texture or type.
ReplyDeleteMy hair was severely matted for over 2 years. Yes, 2 years. I used Knotty Boy Ultimate Detangler. Ordered it online. I couldn't believe how easy it was to detangle my hair. Will use it as a regular conditioner so my hair will never get matted ever again.
ReplyDeleteWow great post its all information is really great for me and other users.
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